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  • Tel Aviv.

  • As Israel grows more nationalist,

  • Tel Aviv is the last stronghold

  • of our nation's liberals.

  • It is a supercool cosmopolitan city

  • and the place I call home.

  • In 2016, I decided to say goodbye to Tel Aviv

  • and spend the summer with the Israelis

  • that I disagree with the most: the settlers.

  • Since Israel's ongoing military occupation

  • of the West Bank that started in 1967,

  • Jewish settlers have moved to the Palestinian territories

  • into settlements that are illegal,

  • according to the international law.

  • As Israeli society polarizes around views

  • of the occupation, I found myself increasingly

  • curious about Israelis my age who

  • grew up in those settlements, who

  • were born into this reality.

  • I ended up in one of the oldest Israeli settlements,

  • called Tekoa, which was founded in 1977.

  • About an hour drive from Tel Aviv,

  • it is a world apart, isolated in the Judean hills

  • and surrounded by Palestinian villages.

  • I rented a small apartment on the corner of Hospitality

  • Road and Joy Street.

  • And I thought to myself, these are two things

  • I'll definitely need here.

  • After all, it's not every day that a liberal from Tel Aviv

  • moves to a settlement.

  • Once I settled in, to make myself feel more at home,

  • I set up a small cafe and waited for company.

  • Well, apparently coffee is not in demand in Tekoa,

  • as well as a liberal with three cameras.

  • For a while, it seemed like the only locals

  • who visited my table were flies, a cat, and my only

  • new friend in town, Matanya.

  • But being stubborn eventually paid off.

  • Unlike Tekoa, which is considered

  • a moderate settlement, the Jewish settlement

  • in the Palestinian city of Hebron

  • is the most extremist of all, where

  • extreme settlers live in the midst

  • of a large Palestinian city.

  • Moriya grew up there.

  • It seems like we grew up in totally different worlds.

  • While I knew Palestinians come in and out of the settlements

  • every day to work, building more of the buildings

  • that they will never be allowed to live in,

  • seeing them line up to enter settlements

  • that represent their oppression with my own eyes

  • was very unsettling.

  • Her uncensored lack of political correctness

  • definitely shocked me, but also

  • made me want to hear more.

  • Despite a peace and love and the hippie vibe of Tekoa,

  • sometimes the complexity of the tension

  • here slaps you in the face.

  • My next door neighbor's family was

  • attacked in the shooting ambush, killing her father,

  • and leaving her mother and two siblings wounded.

  • Her cry and weep across our shared wall

  • when she first got the message tore my heart apart.

  • In January 2016, a Palestinian teenager

  • stabbed Tekoa resident Michal Froman

  • at the local thrift shop.

  • She was four months pregnant at the time.

  • Most of the people my age I chatted with

  • were honest about the negative effect of the settlements

  • on Palestinians, who are repressed

  • as long as they are occupied.

  • I wondered how they still choose to live here.

  • On my last day in Tekoa, Matanya

  • stopped by for a farewell chat.

  • [music]

[music]

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